Media & Communication Science Flashcards
What is a medium?
A medium (or media) is “a means - a tool, a technique, an intermediary - that enables people to express themselves and to communicate to others [an] expression of their thoughts, whatever the object or form “ (Balle, 2020).
There are variety of attempts to group and categorize media:
* Based on type: e.g., informative, interactive, individual vs mass media, media genres (print/text, visual, digital)
* Based on function: e.g., articulation, distribution, communication, storage, processing
What is a medium?: characteristics
➢ By talking about the media, we are often referring to objects that are: material, highly visible, an integral part of everyone’s daily life, and studied because they have impacts on receivers according to the content of the message they transmit
➢ The five mass -media: press, cinema, radio, television, Internet (Balle, 2020).
➢ Media studies try to analyse the opinions formed in societies and by individuals, and how these opinions are formed using media
What is communication ?
- The word “communication” comes from the Latin “communicare”, which means “to share”, “to make common” or “to put in common”. This Latin term is itself derived from “communis”, meaning “common”.
- Communication = connection between two communicating parties (communicators)
- Communication can be one sided: information, transmission of a message from one place to another, action by communicators
- Two-sided communication: exchange, interaction, participation in social context
- Within media and communica
Communication: parts
- Communicator (sender, speaker, etc.)
- Supply of signs (code)
- Medium (system of signs, means and channels of communication)
- Recipient (listener, viewer, etc.)
- Process character (encoding, transmission, decoding)
What is mass communication?
- Mass = collection of a large aggregate of people without much individuality
- Mass communication = “organized means of communicating openly, at a distance, and to many in a short time” ( McQuail , 2005)
Key features: - Asymmetrical relationship between sender and receiver
- One-sided, one directional, impersonal
- Standardization and commodification of contents
- Mass communication concepts traditionally ignore aspects of human communication
What are mass media?
- Generally, we speak talk about ‘mass -media’, ‘media power’ and the power or the ‘media -political sphere’ to reinforce the strong and close link between the media, politics and society. This is based on the sociological experience of radio and television
- “The mass media (a plural form) refer to the organized means of communicating openly, at a distance, and to many in a short space of time” (McQuail , 2005)
- Key feature: “their capacity to reach the entire population rapidly and with much the same information, opinions and entertainment” (McQuail , 2005) M
What are communication sciences?
- Communication science is a science which “seeks to understand the production, processing and effects of symbols and signal systems by developing testable theories, containing lawful generalizations, that explain phenomena associated with production, processing and effects” (Berger & Chaffee, 1987)
- -> origins from quantitative (US led) study of communication behavior
Communication sciences: Characteristics
- Media & comm. sciences have, however, many different disciplinary origins: Philosophy, anthropology, sociology, psychology, ethnology, political science, etc.
- Is there a need for a clearly defined field or discipline? Communication is studied in other sciences. The multidisciplinary nature of Communication means that communication studies are fundamentally multi- and interdisciplinary.
Concerns of communication theory and research (McQuail, 2005)
- Who communicates to whom? (sources and receivers)
- Why communicate? (functions and purposes)
- How does communication take place? (channels, * languages, codes)
- What about? (content, references, types of information)
- What are the outcomes of communication, intended or unintended? (ideas, understandings, actions)
What are journalism studies: 4 phases
A young, but hard to define discipline
* Journalism studies is “one of the fastest growing areas
* within the larger discipline of communication research and
* media studies” Wahl Jorgensen & Hanitzsch, 2009)
Four phases of journalism studies:
“While the field came out of normative research by German scholars on the role of the press in society, it gained prominence with the empirical turn, particularly significant in the United States, was enriched by a subsequent sociological turn, particularly among Anglo American scholars, and has now, with the global-comparative turn, expanded its scope to reflect the realities of a globalized world”.
Journalism studies: characteristics
What are journalism studies
* Relatively new field of research
* New technologies and media convergence
* Multi- and interdisciplinarity
* Internationalization in process
“Journalism studies is a fast-growing field within the communication discipline. Over the past decades, the number of scholars identifying themselves as journalism researchers has increased tremendously” (WahlJorgensen & Hanitzsch, 2009).
RECAP: intro
Medium, communication, Mass communication, Mass media, Communication Sciences (Studies), Journalism Studies
What are:
* Medium (or a media): “…a tool, a technique, an intermediary - that enables people to express themselves and to communicate to others…” (Balle, 2020).
* Communication: a connection between two communicating parties (communicators)
* Mass Communication: “the organized means of communicating openly, at a distance, and to many in a short space of time” (McQuail , 2005)
* Mass media: media with “capacity to reach the entire population rapidly and with much the same information, opinions and entertainment” (McQuail , 2005)
* Communication Sciences (Studies): multi- and interdisciplinary sciences that studies communications and media processes and effects in society
* Journalism Studies: very young derived from Communication Sciences and focused on journalism activities and their impacts in social life
Signs. Sign and semiotic
➢ The sign is “the smallest component of every act of communication” (Loisen & Joye, 2017). It’s the element that makes sense in any act of communication
➢ The sign is an abstract
Semiotic “is now a research technique that succeeds in describe how communication and meaning work“ (Eco, 1988).
Semiotic or “semiology” ?
Semiology:
- Linguistic dimension of the sign - Emphasis on signs organised in systems of signs
Main authors: Ferdinand de Saussure, Roman Jakobson, Louis Hjelmslev, Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, Algirdas Julien Greimas
Semiotic:
- Philosophical and psychological perspective - Emphasis on situational signs
Main authors: Charles Sanders Peirce, Thomas Sebeok, Gérard Deledalle, David Savan, Eliseo Veron, Claudine Tiercelin, etc.
Semiotic or “semiology”?
“The first (semiotic), of American origin, is the canonical term that designates semiotics as the philosophy of language. The use of second (semiology), of European origin, is understood more as the study of specific languages (images, gestures, theatre, etc.)“(Joly, 1993, p. 25).
The sign for Ferdinand de Saussure
signifier (“signifiant” in French) + signified (“signifié” in French)
The signifier: “the material form of a sign or its (physical appearance; this might be an image or a sound, but can also be the written word” (Loisen & Joye, 2017)
The signified: “the (mental) concept, meaning or idea to which the material form of the sign refers” (ibid.)
The referent: the social meaning that gives meaning to the sign.
The notion of a “sign”
The notion of a “sign” is an abstract construction designed to explain a concept.
Example :
When I write or say “Dog”:
The signifier is the written or said word “Dog”
The signified is the meaning of the written or said word in the minds
The referent is what we admit it refers to in real social life
Signifier and signified for Roland Barthes
He extends Saussure’s (linguistic) concepts to include other fields such as visual communication, fashion, cinema, etc.
➢ The signifier is a material manifestation that can take different forms, such as words, images, gestures, objects, sounds, etc.
➢ The signified is not limited to the conceptual dimension. It also encompasses the cultural, symbolic and social meanings associated with a sign.
For to Barthes, the meaning of an image results from the interlocking of elements of denotation and connotation it contains and as they are perceived and interpreted by the receiver
Denotation or denotative meaning is based on the shapes, colours and objects that an image shows. It is what the author calls “the letter of the image [which] corresponds in sum to the first degree of the intelligible”. → related to his conception of the the signifier
Connotation or connotative meaning is based on signs that refer to meanings that require practical knowledge (linked to usage) or cultural knowledge to be understood → related to his conception of the the signified
The Sign System for Charles Sanders Peirce
The representamen: or the form of the sign
The interpretant: or the meaning that is given to the sign
The object: to which the sign refers
The Communication process The Shannon-Weaver Model of Communication
Important: The Shannon and Weaver model was designed originally to explain communication through means such as radio waves in military environment.
Sender: the person (or object, or thing – any information source) who has the information (orally, in writing, through body language, music, etc.)
Encoder: is the machine (or person) that converts the idea into signals
Channel: it’s the infrastructure through which the information is transmitted. It’s the ‘medium’.
Noise: it could interrupt the understanding of a message. There are internal noise (when a sender makes a mistake encoding a message or a receiver makes a mistake decoding the message) and external noise ( when something not in the control of sender or receiver impedes the message).
Decoder: a device that decodes a message from binary digits or waves back into a format that can be understood by the receiver. A person can need to interpret (decode) the meaning behind a picture that was sent to him.
Receiver: the person who finally gets the message.
Feedback: it was added by Norbert Weiner in response to criticism of the linear nature of Shannon and Weaver’s approach. It provides the sender an information about how the message was received. It permits to make adjustments as needed.
Criticisms of an unperfect model (The Shannon-Weaver Model of Communication):
Criticisms of an unperfect model (The Shannon-Weaver Model of Communication):
▪ Not focused on the differences in human interpretation
▪ Over-simplified the process of communication and think it linear and one-way.
▪ Not good to support modern multi-media communication with mass audiences accessing information at different times.
But the fundamental principles are still relevant. It served as the building block for many other modern models and theories.
Hypothetical decoding positions
There are three hypothetical decoding positions proposed by Stuart Hall, (1993):
1. Dominant or hegemonic decoding position: the decoder decoded the text according to how the encoder encoded it
2. Negotiated decoding position: the decoder understood the message partly based on the meaning that media prompts, and partly based on one’s own social background.
3. Oppositional decoding position: (confrontational position) is inconsistent with the dominant coding, including reflecting and rebelling. The audience or viewer perfectly understood both the literal and connotative information but decoded the message contrarily or resisted.
But oppositional decoding is different from aberrant decoding where audiences were failing to understand the message and in the sense that they were deviations from the intentions of the sender.
Different forms of communication
Considering people who participate in an act of communication and the different characteristics of the act (Muylle, 2011):
➢ Intrapersonal communication: within the person, communication to yourself.
➢ Interpersonal communication: face-to-face communication, between two individuals or a limited number of people who have individual relationships, high level de feedback
➢ Mass communication: large and anonymous group of people, the central position is occuped by an organized unit (e.g. a firm or a broadcaster)
Meta-language communication
➢ Non-verbal communication: clarifies, strengthens, weakens or sometimes replace verbal communication, especially in interpersonal form of communication; no message is a message
What is science? What are social sciences?
➢ Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence (Science Council_UK)
➢ Social Sciences comprise those disciplines that are concerned with the study of human behaviour and the societies we form (Oxford Reference). They encompass anthropology, archaeology, economics, human geography, linguistics, management science, communication science, psychology and political science.
➢ Media & communication sciences (studies) are a field of social sciences that has been shaped by developing trends in other disciplines
Successive elements of scientific revolutions
According to the « Paradigm shifts » of Thomas Kuhn (1962), there are successive elements of scientific revolutions in these steps:
* Normal science
* Puzzle-solving
* Paradigm
* Anomaly
* Crisis
* Revolution
However, Kuhn’s ideas are primarily applicable to natural sciences and to the general philosophy of science. In the social sciences, it is not possible to speak of paradigm shifts, in the sense of an existing paradigm that is completely replaced by another.
Recap Chapter 2: sign, semiology, semiotic, denotation, connotation, communication process, dufferent forms of communication
- The sign: “the smallest component of every act of communication”.
- Semiology: European origin → Linguistic dimension of the sign Sign = Signifier + signified … Referent
- Semiotic: American origin → Philosophical and psychological perspective Sign = Representamen + interpretant + object
- Denotation: the first degree of the intelligible → related the signifier
- Connotation: meanings that require practical knowledge or cultural knowledge to be understood → related to conception of the signified
- The Communication process: Sender, Encoder, Channel, Noise, Decoder, Receiver, Feedback
- Different forms of communication: Intrapersonal communication, Interpersonal communication, Mass communication, Non-verbal communication
History of Mass Media: characteristics
For Marshall McLuhan ([1964] 1994), “each major historical era took its overall cognitive style from the medium used most widely at the time”
➢ It means that there are interconnection between human development, culture, social events and technology in a context of media and communication.
➢ New technological developments go hand in hand with social developments, and vice versa.
Process to mass media
Oral cultures → visual or symbol based language → phonetic alphabet → And then, beginning of mass media
McLuhan saw alphabet based scripts as “the first true cognitive revolution in human history.”
→ An occidentalized and criticized point of view…
Main elements that are of significance in the wider life of society
These are:
* certain communicative purposes, needs, or uses;
* technologies for communicating publicly to many at a distance;
* forms of social organization that provide the skills and;
* frameworks for production and distribution;
* organized forms of governance in the ‘public interest’.
Influencing factors on society developmet
- Time and place (natural factors)
- Social circumstances
- Cultural conditions
“In general, the more open the society, the more inclination there has been to develop communication technology to its fullest potential, especially in the sense of being universally available and widely used ” (McQuail , 2005).
→ That means that it’s important for a society to be opened to other societies to develop communication technology
Print Media: invention argument
▪ The invention of the first printing press is traditionally linked to the name of Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468).
▪ However, printing technology has roots that go back to the sixth century… because the Chinese were already working with woodblock printing, which was further perfected by the use of individual letters from 1045
▪ Paper was also invented in China: why printing is still largely seen as a western technology, and not as a Chinese one?
▪ Related in part to the dominant western perspective in historical overviews of media and communication (Mc-Quail, 2010, p. 25)
The Gutenberg Galaxy + trends
McLuhan (1962) : the invention of printing heralded the start of an historic era that he described as The Gutenberg Galaxy.
➢ This galaxy succeeded oral and written culture, and was itself later followed by the electronic age of media and communication.
➢ For him, there was huge social change in the centuries after Gutenberg, and book printing played an important role in this change, in combination with other social factors and developments.
➢ The printed press contributed to (and was in turn reinforced by) social trends such as individualisation, secularisation, democratisation, capitalism and nationalism.
The book as a medium
McQuail → books are the beginning of mass media.
The book as a medium means: (McQuail, 2005:27)
* Technology of movable type
* Bound pages, codex form
* Multiple copies
* Commodity form
* Multiple (secular) content
* Individual in use
* Claim to freedom of publication
* Individual authorship, etc.
The newspaper: Relation principles
- Relation, first published in 1609.
- Early newspapers were marked by its regular appearance, commercial basis, public character and multiple purposes.
- The written press has not changed much since then in terms of basic principles
- It is relatively recent that non-partisan and independent press coupled with investigative journalism (and it depends on the journalistic culture!).
Newspaper: La Gazette
- La Gazette, launched in 1631 by Théophraste Renaudot, was the first periodical (France) to provide political, literary and artistic news.
- Distribution facilitated by postal services and takeover and translation agreements throughout Europe.
- In 1758, during the ill-fated Seven Years’ War, up to 15,000 copies of the Gazette were printed, including 3,000 in Paris.
- After the creation of the Journal de Paris in 1777, daily newspapers proliferated during the Revolution.
- The term ‘advertising’ (publicité) first appeared in the 1630s, at the same time as the press, its main medium.
➢ It referred to the action of bringing information to the attention of the public.
Press and advertising
- The press has been financed largely by advertising since its inception.
- But revenues from press copy have been declining since the advent of the Internet.
Press audience
- Newspaper readership has also fallen over the years
- The spread of radio, television and, later, the Internet, dealt a blow to press audience figures.
- The periodical (weekly or monthly) magazine appeared in great diversity and with wide circulations from the early eighteenth century onwards : “it eventually developed into a mass market of high commercial value and enormous breadth of coverage.” (McQuail, 2010)
!! The newspaper medium (McQuail, 2005:28)
- Regular and frequent appearance
- Commodity form
- Reference to current events
- Public sphere function
- Urban, secular audience
- Relative freedom
More recent trends in print media
- Trend to free newspapers started with Metro International 1995 in Stockholm.
- Worldwide online newspapers grew significantly during the last half of the 1990s (Le Monde, 1995; NYT, 1996).
- At the end of the 1990s start of online newspaper archives.
- The peak of newspaper circulation (in Europe) in the mid1980s (after The Thirty Glorious Years)
- Since 2007 the iPhone and other smartphones enforced increased mobile access to news.
Film: beginning & development
(McQuail, 2010)
* Began at the end of the 19th century as a technological novelty
* New means of presentation and distribution: stories, spectacles, music, drama, humour and technical tricks for popular consumption.
* The ‘Americanization’ of the film industry and film culture in the years after the First World War
- Private experience from the coming of television and the separation of film from the cinema (television broadcasting, cable transmission, videotape and DVD sale or hire, satellite TV and now digital broadband Internet and mobile phone reception)
- Related to technological innovations
- Focus on needs of the audience (escapism: provides an escape from reality or everyday matters)
!!!Key features on Film (McQuail, 2010)
- Audiovisual channels of reception
- Private experience of public content
- Predominantly narrative fiction
- International in genre and format
- Subjection to social control
- High cost of production
- Multiple platforms of distribution
Similarities of radio and TV
Similarities of radio and TV:
* Radio is around a century old, TV is younger (1950s)
* Both emerged from pre-existing technologies (e.g., telephone, telegraph, photography, sound reporting)
* Based on new technologies, rather a response to a demand for content
* Content and format derived from existing genres and topics (e.g., film, theatre, sports, news)
* Centralized pattern of distribution from urban sources of supply
* High degree of regulation and licensing by public authorities
* Closeness to power, little political independence
Radio: history
▪ Heinrich Hertz first proved in 1879 the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell’s
▪ Guglielmo Marconi: succeeded in sending the first electronic signal over radio waves for a distance of three kilometers in 1895
▪ Turn of the 20th century: the new medium was slowly gaining in popularity with lobbyists and amateurs, who built their own transmitters
▪ BBC: first radio broadcasting networks (a news bulletin at 6 pm the 14 November 1922), leading pioneer in the field
Radio: development
▪ Radio was the first medium capable of reaching the masses without the need to know how to read and write
▪ Radio reached its peak in terms of social impact before and during the Second World War (e.g.: news from the front, inspiring broadcasts by the American president Roosevelt or the propaganda messages of Hitler, etc.)
▪ Rise of television in the 1950s: radio lost its place as the most important prime-time channel for relaxation and information.
▪ Radio became a secondary or complementary medium
Harold Lasswell
In 1948, Harold Lasswell was the first to formulate clearly the “functions” of (mass) communication in society in his model i.e. the tasks essential to its maintenance. →
➢ Surveillance function: mass media inform and observe the public
➢ A consensus or correlation function: mass media link providers of the society components
➢ A socialization or transmission function: media reflects our own beliefs, values and norms In his view, communication helps to perpetuate an integrated and orderly society, despite the fact that mass communication can lead to dysfunction.
McQuail (2005): four models of mass communication
❑ A transmission model
❑ A ritual or expressive model
❑ A publicity model
❑ A reception model
The ‘gatekeeper
In studies (principally in Journalism studies) and theories about the communicator → The concept of ‘gatekeeper’ (Gatekeeping theory of Kurt Lewin and David Manning White) is frequently employed to describe an individual who exercises control over the process of information selection, reworks the selected information into a media message, and then transmits that message through a particular medium (McQuail, 2010).
Newspaper editors and journalists → examples of gatekeepers, but the term can also be applied to anyone who communicates and thinks (un)consciously about what they want to say or not say.
Worlds of Journalism
- Hanitzsch, T., Hanusch, F. Ramaprasad, J., & de Beer, A. S. (2019). Worlds of Journalism: Journalistic Cultures Around the Globe. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Data from 27.500 journalists across 67 countries of the world (2012-16). For more information visit: https://worldsofjournalism.org
- Project focusses on how journalists perceive journalism as an institution, e.g., questions of editorial autonomy, journalistic ethics, trust in social institutions, changes in the profession.
“Results show that democracy and press freedom are negatively correlated with journalists’ institutional trust” (less journalists’ institutional trust means less democracy and less freedom)
DNR Key findings
‘…in many of the countries covered in our survey we find the news media increasingly challenged by rising mis and disinformation, low trust, attacks by politicians, and an uncertain business environment.’
▪ Decline in the use of Facebook for news and a growing reliance on a range of alternatives including private messaging apps and video networks, in many countries, especially outside Europe and the United States
▪ News use across online platforms = 10% of respondents (2% a decade ago) : YouTube (31%) WhatsApp (21%), TikTok (13%), X (10%).
▪ Video is becoming a more important source of online news, especially for younger groups : short news videos are viewed by 66%, longer formats by 51% ; and the main locus of news video consumption is online platforms (72%) rather than publisher websites (22%)
▪ Platforms, including social media, search, or aggregators are still the main gateway to online news. Only 22% identify news websites or apps as their main source of online news (down 10 percentage points on 2018)
▪ Information sources: an increasing focus on partisan commentators, influencers, and young news creators, especially on YouTube and TikTok. But in social networks like Facebook and X, traditional news brands and journalists still tend to play a prominent role
▪ What is real and what is fake on the internet when it comes to online news: 59% saying they are concerned ; 81% in South Africa and the 72% United States (elections this year in these countries)
▪ Trust in the news: 40% (four points lower overall than it was at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic ; Finland = the country with the highest levels of overall trust (69%), 23% for Greece and Hungary (the lowest levels) → political and business influence over the media.
▪ News subscription: 17% saying they paid for any online news in the last year, across a basket of 20 richer countries ; North European countries such as Norway (40%) and Sweden (31%) have the highest proportion of those paying ; Japan (9%) and the United Kingdom (8%) amongst the lowest.
▪ News podcasting: → attracting younger, well-educated audiences but is a minority activity overall. 20 richer countries: 35% access a podcast monthly; 13% accessing a show relating to news and current affairs… Many of the most popular podcasts are now filmed and distributed via video platforms such as YouTube and TikTok
